


So You Want to Stay in the Closet Forever

by DJClawson



Series: Theodore Nelson's Adventures in Sharing a Workspace [10]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Bisexuality, Closeted Character, Drugs, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Poor Sexual Hygiene, so much cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 07:35:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17638535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/pseuds/DJClawson
Summary: When Theo met Ward.





	So You Want to Stay in the Closet Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Pogopop for the beta assist!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: This fic has alllll the slurs. In multiple languages. 
> 
> The Netflix universe is notoriously bad with timelines, contradicting them between seasons (did Matt and Foggy meet 5 years ago or 10 years ago? It's anyone's guess), so this story is in the vagueish past, sometime when Foggy was still in law school and Danny was still presumed dead. That's the best I can do.
> 
> Also, if you have any desire to see more of Theo and Ward in the past, let me know. (In the present, they are very, very over)
> 
> As usual, you are welcome to leave suggestions of what you want to see in the series and I will try to work on it.

~5 Years Ago

Theo’s hands were shaking. He wasn’t scared; he’d just drunk too much Red Bull without enough vodka, again. Trying to even it out now was heading into Bad Decision Territory © and he had had enough experience with _that_ recently. He couldn’t call in sick and have his mom show up with soup, and he couldn’t afford to go to work and lose a finger to a boning knife.

It was probably time to go anyway: he had lost track of time and he had just shared a stall with the last person who did not look at him like a pity fuck. “Hey Dave,” he said to the guy doing coke right off the porcelain sink counter. “Fuck, don’t do that here.”

“Don’t judge.”

“You know, that passing grade health inspection certificate is totally fake and I don’t know how Rob hasn’t been fined yet,” Theo explained.

“I’m not _eating_ it,” Dave said. “I think the only guy who’s ever eaten anything here is that guy who practically threw up all over Todd.”

“Todd? Good.”

“You should have told him that; I think he left out the back with him.”

“Fuck.” Theo’s general rule was to not get involved in the private lives of people he didn’t want knowing about his life, but he had a guess that no one else was going to be the good Samaritan here. “Is he still lying about getting tested?”

Dave nodded, wiping his nose to make sure everything got in and stayed there. “Guy’s a fucking petri dish.” He shouted to Theo on his way out, “Don’t be a hero! He’s bigger than you!”

Todd was bigger than Theo - most people were - but when he could bear the idea of punching someone, Theo had strength from hauling boxes and slabs of meat that surprised people. Granted, he usually missed but that didn’t mean he couldn’t _throw_ a punch. Fortunately he didn’t have to, because Todd was already walking away, leaving the poor guy in the suit ralphing into a cardboard box.

“Woah,” Theo said, and grabbed him before he toppled completely. “Easy. Trust me, this isn’t an alley you want to pass out in.”

“Not gonna pass out,” the guy said. “Just - get me to my car.”

“You have a car?” was Theo’s first reaction, followed up by the more responsible, “Are you sure you’re up for driving?”

The guy didn’t seem drunk so much as sick from something - possibly too much alcohol - and he needed to grab Theo’s shirt to steady himself, pushing against him until he got to his feet. “Sorry,” he said, retracting his hand, suddenly self-conscious. “Yeah. I got a car.”

“Where do you even park it?”

The guy didn’t answer. He needed to be sick again, and this time nearly all over Theo, who could see Todd’s wisdom. But he couldn’t abandon the guy, who was barely in shape to walk, much less drive, and guided him to the bench at the bus stop and bought him a ginger ale from the 7-11 nearby.

“Bus isn’t coming,” the guy said, but took the soda. His hair was probably usually moussed excessively but now it was hilariously askew, sticking straight up in places.

“I know, it’s way too late for that,” Theo said. “But at least wait until you can walk on your own before you try to get a cab.”

“I have a car.”

“So I’ve heard.”

They sat in silence. It was warm, but there was an early fall breeze that made the city air actually refreshing. Theo was calming down; the guy next to him was waking up, or at least had decided to do his best not to pass out.

“You have a smoke?” the guy finally said.

“Not cigarettes.”

“I think it might help with my nausea.”

“Are you a cop?”

“Do I look like a cop?”

“You kind of dress like one.”

The guy smoothed out his jacket. “Do you think a cop could afford this suit? And no one’s going to arrest two white guys for possession unless you’ve got at least 16 ounces on you.”

“Now you sound like a cop.”

“I’m a lawyer. Or - I went to law school. I’m licensed. But I’m not a cop.”

Theo rifled through his pockets for his remaining joint, which could not possibly have enough left in it to let anyone commit a criminal offense. “It’s weak.”

The guy had a lighter, and accepted the joint. “Thanks. Why do you buy weak shit?”

“It’s for coming down at the end of the night. Helps me fall asleep.”

His companion nodded and took a very experienced hit before passing the joint back. Theo figured he might as well.

“Definitely gets the taste out of my mouth,” the guy said. “Fuck, I don’t even remember what I ordered.”

“You can’t order fancy drinks at that bar. They don’t know how to make ‘em. Who knows what you got.”

Theo passed the joint back and the guy took a very conservative drag. “Sorry I pulled you out of there. Do you want to go back?”

“Nah, I’m done for the night. I think if I drink any more Red Bull I might die.”

“It’s so overrated.”

“It’s the only energy drink they serve in there.”

“That is the result of clever marketing,” the guy said. “I’m Ward, by the way. If you’re in the business of learning names. Not everybody is.”

Ward handed the joint back and Theo accepted. “Ted.” He took one more hit, but promised himself it would be the last. He had to take delivery in the morning.

After another contemplative silence, Ward said, “I really think I’m good to drive.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What are you going to do? Take my keys?”

“You’re so fucked up right now I probably could get ‘em if I tried.”

Ward patted himself down, perhaps to check that they were still there, and sighed. “I can handle an upset stomach, you know. I’m not that drunk. Not anymore anyway.”

But Ward still hadn’t asked Theo to leave, so Theo just said, “Yeah.”

“You don’t have to sit here with me.”

“I guess I don’t.”

Theo didn’t move, either. Partially because he was starting to feel the effects of the weed, and partially because the breeze was so nice, and he couldn’t just leave this guy who looked like he had a million dollars in his pocket to get mugged.

“So,” Ward said, “what do you do?”

“I’m a butcher.”

“Is that a metaphor? Or some code I don’t know yet?”

“It means I cut meat up and then sell it,” Theo said. “It’s not very exciting.” He didn’t want to talk about himself that much. “What do you do? You said you’re a lawyer?”

“I have a law degree. I’m a CFO. That’s a - “

“ - Chief Financial Officer, I know. Very prestigious. Next you’re going to tell me you have a condo overlooking the Hudson.”

“I ... might have that.” But at the moment Ward seemed weirdly ashamed of it. “I also don’t have to work with dead animals.”

“I don’t have to wear a hideous tie to work.”

Ward ran his hand over his silk tie. “It’s not hideous.”

“Look, I may not be the Bravo TV type of gay, but it’s hideous.”

Ward laughed. It was the first moment of the night where he didn’t seem absolutely miserable.

“I think I’m good to go now,” Ward said. “Or at least get a cab.”

“Your car’s not going to get towed?”

“Diplomatic plates.”

“You’re a diplomat?”

“I’m rich,” Ward said. He stood up, fairly solid on his own two feet. “Do you want a lift?”

“I think the subway might be faster.” And Theo didn’t want to imply anything. Ward thought he wasn’t impaired, but that didn’t mean it was true. And his mouth probably tasted like vomit. “Thanks, though.”

“Thanks for making sure I didn’t die in an alley behind a bar that does not deserve its Yelp review.”

Theo giggled. “You wouldn’t have died. And the place isn’t known for its atmosphere.”

Ward only took a step forward before turning to Theo. “You don’t have to, but you want to, um - “

“Yeah, okay.” Theo opened his phone to the new contact screen.

Ward took it and filled in the details. “I’m texting myself so you have my number. If you want to chat or something.” Oddly, Ward did sound like he might want to chat, sans any euphemism, but maybe it was the fact that they were both a little high.

“Sure.” Theo wasn’t sure if he’d ever see this guy again, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t use another person to talk to who didn’t remember him with braces.

Ward called himself a cab - as in he literally called some guy who knew him and told him to send a car - and they exchanged hazy goodbyes. Theo had no expectation to hear from him again. It wasn’t disappointing - it was just his life.

  


Keeping a properly-stocked butcher shop and deli in Manhattan was a constant uphill battle. Pop would tell stories of learning how to cut off chicken heads in the back room with his father when the shop first opened, but health codes prevented that now, and Theo knew for a fact he couldn’t handle it anyway. Everything was about as fresh as it could be in Manhattan, which meant not very. Most people wanted their steak overdone and couldn’t tell anyway, Pop said. No one appreciated a good cut of meat anymore, Pop said, glaring distinctly at Theo, who pretended he didn’t notice.

Mom took over the shop, which was never busy first thing in the morning, while they handled the second delivery of non-perishable supplies. Increasingly this involved Theo hauling boxes from the truck to the store while Pop talked to their cousin, or third cousin, or whatever he actually was.

“Hey fag,” said the delivery assistant, Enrique, as he hurled a box at Theo’s chest. It was his usual greeting.

“Hey asshole,” Theo said as he caught it. The first box was always light because one time Theo had full-on hit the pavement and bruised his back and it had started a huge fight. Other than that, punches in the food service industry were rarely pulled. Pop was in front of the delivery truck and didn’t hear any of it, though he probably wouldn’t be surprised if he did. Theo loaded the first box onto the hand truck as Enrique brought the loading ramp down.

“What’s with all of this Mexican coke?” Enrique said as he looked over the order on the clipboard.

“Customers love that shit.”

“It’s a scam. Mexican coke is just coke.”

“But they’re willing to pay way too much money for it, so we sell it.”

“Glass bottles are delicate as shit, man,” Enrique said. He didn’t look drunk or high, so that probably explained his foul mood. “Why don’t you sell anything decent?”

“Hey! Fuck you!” Theo said. “You haven’t eaten our homemade salami.”

“You can eat this salami,” Enrique said, and made an obscene gesture that Theo ignored as he took down another box. “Irish don’t know nothing about food, man. Just beer.”

“Whiskey. We know about whiskey,” Theo said. He decided not to return fire with the quality of Dominican food, usually because the few times he had eaten at a Dominican restaurant, he ended up with a big plate of yellow rice something they said had no butter but definitely had butter. “And also we’re both American, so who gives a fuck?”

Enrique said something to him in Spanish. Or, it was definitely Spanish by way of Washington Heights, but since Theo didn’t recognize a single word, he guessed from context that it was a particularly foul line of curses. “Yeah,” Theo replied. “And fuck your mom, too.”

“You wouldn’t know what to do with her, you _maricón_.”

Theo responded with a middle finger and pushed the filled handcart into the door his mother was holding open for him. She was beyond commenting on his language at this point.

Moving everything from the truck took half an hour, but it seemed like longer, maybe because Theo had been up so late. He sat down on a crate with a coffee to wait for his father to finish chatting with his cousin and go over the order himself. This could take a long time, but Theo didn’t mind because his day went about as normal, and he knew Enrique was paid hourly and was more than happy to sit in the back of the van and play on his phone.

“You want some lunch?”

“Fuck you.”

Wow, he was ornery today. “You can have some of my salad.”

“No thanks.”

Theo went inside and got the corned beef sandwich on rye he knew Enrique would want and brought it out alongside his own lunch. “You’re welcome,” he said to Enrique, who was hanging over the edge of the truck, absorbed by the contents of the tiny screen. “Man, what is with you today - “

That screen. He knew that screen. He knew that nondescript-looking menu screen.

 _No fucking way_.

Theo opened his own phone and loaded the app. “You gotta be shitting me.” Since Enrique was still not responding, not even a grunt, he kicked him in the back - not hard, just enough that he would feel it. “You’re fucking kidding me!”

“Ow! Fuck!” Enrique said, almost dropping his phone. “What the fuck do you want?”

Theo opened Enrique’s profile on the app and held the screen up to his face. “Apparently, if I wanted to get my dick sucked by someone within ten feet of me, that would be an option.”

“ _The fuck are you doing on that app?_ ”

“The fuck are _you_ doing on this app?” Theo got his phone out of the danger zone as Enrique grasped for it just in time, because he probably would have destroyed it. He sat down next to him as he scrolled through Enrique’s Grindr profile. “You’re lying about your age and I’m not going to kinkshame you but I _hope_ you’re lying about some of this other stuff!”

Enrique attacked him with such ferocity that it might have turned into a serious fight if they weren’t twenty feet away from both of their bosses and trying to keep their voices down. Enrique kept trying to steal Theo’s phone, but he was too angry to see straight. “Give that to me!”

“It’s my fucking phone!” Theo said. “Jesus Christ, calm down. I’m not going to tell anybody. I just find it ironi -”

“You can’t fucking tell _anybody_ ,” Enrique whisper-shouted. “Or I will tell everyone that Nelson’s son is a - “

“Cut it out with the fucking slurs!” Theo said. “Every time I see you you call me a fag and I don’t like it. It’s accurate but that’s none of your fucking business! What is it with you? We don’t have to talk like this!” He watched as Enrique went from angry to just devastated with remarkable speed. “Look, we’re in a suicide pact now - we can’t tell anyone about each other and we’re not going to. Just stop it with the gay jokes. They’re not even good jokes.”

Enrique went quiet and they sat there with their untouched lunches. Theo could hear Enrique’s breathing.

“My mom would fucking disown me,” Enrique said in a small voice. “My dad would kill me. Literally _kill_ me.”

Theo didn’t know Enrique’s dad, but he didn’t doubt it. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my business.”

“I got dumped last night,” Enrique said. “He said I was too faggy for him. Sorry - exact words.”

“Yeah, I know the type,” Theo said, because he did. “That sucks, man.”

“One of the only things I like about this job is that I can say whatever I want and no one really listens to it,” Enrique said. “Or I just assumed no one did. I don’t have to mind my fuckin’ p’s and q’s. Makes me feel better. You know I think you’re a good guy, right? You are the least shitty stop of my day.”

“Thanks,” Theo said. “You can still call me shit. You don’t have to change the whole way you behave. Just not - not the gay stuff.”

“Yeah, okay,” Enrique said. “I might slip up - but I’ll try.”

“I appreciate it.” Theo heard a buzz and checked his phone. “Huh.”

It was Ward. LUNCH?

“Guy I met last night,” he said. “Did not think I would hear from him.”

“You going to hit him back?”

“Yeah, why not.” Theo typed: TOMORROW? “I might get a free lunch out of it.”

“You get that now.”

“I might get a _different_ free lunch out of it.”

There were so many different openings to that, but Enrique didn’t take any of them.

 

 

“Your brother’s coming for dinner,” Theo’s mom told him after lunch. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence; Foggy was always scrounging around for good food. “He said he might stop by your place first, if that’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay,” Theo said. There was a reason he had chosen to be a butcher at the family shop. Besides, it was only a matter of time before Foggy was too busy for all of them, even if it was sure taking a lot of schooling to get there.

“I won’t say anything to your father,” she said, “but don’t give him any of your weed.”

“He doesn’t like my weed,” Theo replied, which was true.

  


Three hours later, Foggy appeared at Theo’s apartment. He had shaved his G-dawful goatee. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Theo said, and watched Foggy head for his fridge. Theo didn’t necessarily keep everything perfectly neat, but it was clean, and he didn’t leave any significant paraphernalia around of any kind because his mom had a key. The only thing he did before Foggy showed was clear his browser history, but that was out of habit. “You might not have noticed, but you’re old enough to buy your own beer.”

“I’m just taking one!” Foggy said, though that was rarely true. “Someday I’m gonna be a rich lawyer and I’ll bring you expensive alcohol.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that, and it keeps not happening,” Theo said. “I don’t know how you’re going to graduate if you never even study.”

“Mental health breaks are important,” Foggy said like he was quoting a study. “And just because I don’t come in here quoting case law doesn’t mean I don’t study.”

“So where are all of the friends you could be hanging out with, instead of bothering your brother after he’s tired from work?”

“They’re all studying.”

“They don’t need to eat?”

“I think I’m on the only one who does.” Foggy, as usual, didn’t appreciate how fucking smart he was. He wasn’t just smarter than their whole family of meat-slinging goons combined - he was probably smarter than the people in his class. Theo didn’t have a real sense of it, but he knew that Matt worked a lot harder than Foggy, if Foggy’s complaints were any indication.

There wasn’t a lot of space for furniture in general so Foggy, like most people, ended up sitting on the edge of the bed. There was something on his mind since he hadn’t immediately gone to Theo’s Wii, and there wasn’t a lot of time before dinner after what had frankly been an exhausting day, so Theo just said, “What is it?”

“There doesn’t have to be anything. I could just like spending time with you.”

“Uh-huh. What is it?”

“So there’s this internship.”

“Yeah, it’s a thing people do.” Even Theo had had an internship the summer before his senior year of college. It was when he discovered that he hated working in an office. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to be a lawyer all of the sudden. Or do - it’s your fuckin’ life. I’m not gonna judge you for it.”

“No, as happy as it would make Mom, she’s out of luck,” Foggy said. “I applied and I got it. I should go work there for a summer. They’ll make me work until I pass out but they’ll pay me and maybe after I graduate they’ll give me another internship.”

“But?”

“But what?”

“There has to be a but, Foggy. Or you wouldn’t be asking me.”

Foggy sighed. “Matt hates it.”

“The fuck does it matter what Matt thinks of your internship?”

“I mean the firm. He hates the firm. He says they have disreputable clients.”

“In case you didn’t notice, people who can afford super expensive attorneys can be disreputable,” Theo said. “Again - what the fuck does it matter what Matt thinks? It’s your summer to run around, getting rich people coffee. Not his.”

“I know _that_ ,” Foggy said, and in theory he probably did know that, but this was Foggy, who had some major genetic flaw that led to weakness around the high and mighty Matt Murdock. “It’s just - he got in too and it’s a really good internship and we should be happy we even got it and I wanted us to do it together - “

“And what does Matt think lawyers do? Help old ladies across the street? Fight fires? You make it seem like he’s always studying but it doesn’t sound like he’s paying much attention to what he’s learning in school.”

“There are more noble uses of the law,” Foggy said. “He wants to defend the innocent. I want to do that, too. But you can’t start out that way. You have to do time in the copy room of some skeezy firm if you want to make it anywhere.”

Theo wanted to tell Foggy to fuck Matt and do his own thing, but if he put it that plainly, it wouldn’t play. Foggy had convinced himself he needed that self-righteous prick, and maybe he did, on some level. They worked as _friends_ . Beside Matt, Foggy had confidence and self-esteem and he wasn’t the weird, too-smart-for-his-own-good theater kid anymore. They would probably _kill_ as lawyers. So Theo thought about it and said, “Foggy, listen. I know you like Matt. I know you love Matt. And being the type of lawyer who defends innocent people is a great thing to be, and he can ride on his high horse forever if he wants. That’s on him. He’ll probably even succeed. But what’s right for him isn’t necessarily what’s right for _you_ .” He added, “And it’s one summer. If you think it’s good for _your_ career, you should do it. If you don’t like it, if Matt was right all along - then you learned something. That’s what summer internships are for. To learn something about what you want to do with your education. And to learn how to put on a tie all by yourself, because I’m sure as hell not gonna come do it for you.”

“I have one tie,” Foggy said.

“Oh yeah, what’s it for?”

“Mock trial.”

“Is it a pin-on?”

“No,” Foggy said. “I just never really untie it all the way, and then I tighten it again.” Foggy withered under his glare, even though it wasn’t particularly harsh. “You’re right.”

“It’s been known to happen.” Okay, time to do the big brother thing. Theo sat down next to him and put an arm over his shoulder. “Look, you’re not abandoning your best friend. You’re taking the internship you both applied for because you should know what you’re getting into. And if Matt wants to figure out how to get an internship at a soup kitchen instead, good for him. He’ll go try to save the world and then you’ll be back to classes next year and you’ll both know something new. Or maybe he’ll follow you for once. If he’s half as smart as you then he should be able to figure out that you’re twice as smart as him, and you have good instincts, and someday, it may save both of your skins.”

“... Maybe.”

“I think what you meant was, ‘You’re so wise, Theo,’” he said. “Or ‘You give the best advice, Theo.’”

“You have the best beer, Theo,” Foggy said. “I mean - thank you. And thank you for not shitting on Matt. Too much.”

“He’s a great guy, I’m sure,” Theo said, which was only a little bit of a lie. “And maybe together, you’re going to save the world. But you gotta get there first.”  

“I know,” Foggy said. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Theo said, hoping that he would not have to do this many times in the future, but sensing that he might.

  


Theo wasn’t a hundred percent sure the “lunch” invitation was on the up-and-up, but he’d walked into much sketchier situations, and without the benefit of broad daylight. He had to come from work, so he didn’t dress up, and if appearances were any indication, Ward didn’t know how to dress down.

“You have to be fucking kidding me,” Ward said when they hashed out the place to eat.

“I don’t think I could _pretend_ to be vegan,” Theo said, very accustomed to this response from someone to who already knew what he did for a living. He had only specified that he needed somewhere with a decent salad. He thought that was fair. He didn’t want to end up at some trendy place that was so hip the food was actually terrible. It was hard to screw up lettuce but people sure managed.

“What do you tell customers?”

“That the food is great. Which it is, far as I can remember.”

Ward was amused. He was either easily amused or he did not get out a lot. Theo decided he was fine with either.

What became obvious over lunch was that neither of them had much of a life outside of work. Ward hated his job, and Theo loved his job, but they both agreed they spent way too many hours at their respective jobs, and their social lives were increasingly restricted to their phones. And shitty bars. They both had stories about those.

Ward, adorably, did not know how to use Grindr. “I guess I’m an in-person kind of guy?”

“Are you out?”

“I was the president of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Alliance in college.”

“Fine, we get it, you’re very cool.”

“My parents are also dead, so,” Ward said. “Also, I heard bi is easier.”

Theo had heard that too, and he had tried to be bi, he really had - but he didn’t want to discuss that now. “I heard Tinder is harder. Grindr gets right to the point.”

“How unromantic.”

“You think the bar last night was romantic?”

“I think some things are worth the effort.”

Theo was in love.

End


End file.
